Description
The Humanities Institute at the University of Connecticut seeks to foster interdisciplinary conversation and research at the University and, as the hub of the New England Humanities Consortium, across the six-state region. The Institute is about to embark on a multi-year initiative called “The Future of Truth.” This initiative will ask whether the idea of truth has meaning and value in the contemporary moment and “if so… how can we make truth matter?”
Led by philosopher Michael Lynch and art historian Alexis Boylan, the initiative will comprise several international conferences, produce multiple volumes of original scholarship, and employ distinctive public engagement strategies. This last component is crucial: the organizers hope not only to stimulate a scholarly conversation but also to affect public discourse about truth.
In order to engage non-academic audiences in a compelling way, Lynch and Boylan propose to organize an exhibition that will use objects of art and science to illustrate and interrogate how truth is defined and validated in different ways. By foregrounding differences between competing “knowledges”—artistic and scientific—they hope to encourage audiences to ask how, why, and to what ends they evaluate and assert claims about what is true and what is not.
The organizers propose to develop the exhibition around a small group of what they call “instigator objects,” drawn from the collections of the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH). These will include scientific instruments, photographs, paintings, taxidermy, and expedition materials, among others. They will form the core of an exhibition that will be “customized” using additional objects drawn from the University’s own collections and organized thematically to respond to local interests and concerns.
The exhibition will be mounted at the Benton Museum of Art at the University of Connecticut. The Benton will combine the AMNH objects with State of Connecticut collections relating to marine biology, entomology, and maritime exploration. AMNH will also organize a version of the exhibition in New York City. The project team will develop a plan to travel the exhibition. The University of Kansas, the University of Tennessee, and Colby College have expressed interest in participating and, in each case, would re-frame the exhibition in ways that resonate with their local communities.
Each of the venues will be able to draw upon robust educational materials—for adults and for schoolchildren—that contextualize the instigator objects and relate them to the project’s core questions about the meaning and value of the concept of truth.
A Luce grant would fund: the development of the exhibition concept, including the identification and documentation of the instigator objects; the creation of educational materials; several convenings of scholars and curators, including a culminating symposium to be held when the exhibition opens in Storrs; a public reading group; the mounting of the exhibition at the Benton; and the planning of a multi-site tour to other universities.
